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This was not how the operation was supposed to go. Initially, agents Alfred Jones and Arthur Kirkland got sent to sneak into the enemy hideout to steal a briefcase that allegedly contained detailed plans on operations within the enemy organization. It was planned be an in-and-out mission; it was not supposed to take longer than an hour. Well, Alfred and Arthur did manage to break into the building. And they managed to get the briefcase. The escaping part of the plan was when things went wrong.
First, it turned out the enemy knew that Alfred and Arthur were coming to steal the briefcase. The two agents got ambushed while trying to exit the building. This resulted in a quick gunfight. However, they did not get through it unscathed. Alfred got shot in two places: his left leg and his torso. The bullet went through him both times, so he was bleeding from 4 locations on his body.
At that moment, the objective changed from stealing information to survival. Arthur dropped the briefcase and opted to carry Alfred instead, despite the latter’s protests about completing the original mission objective. The information could be retrieved at another time if lost, but not Alfred’s life.
Once outside, Arthur beelined for the forest. Not only was it in the direction of the field where they were supposed to be picked up by helicopter, but there was a chance for Arthur to lose his pursuers along the way. He didn’t dare look back while he ran. He knew his luck; he would trip on a tiny tree root or a small rock if he got distracted for a split second.
“Hold on, Alfred. We can still make it out of here.” Arthur huffed.
“Hope so.” Alfred grunted. His body getting jostled around irritated his wounds. He could only use his hand to try to stop the bleeding on the front of his torso with the position he was in.
Arthur’s hopes were dashed upon seeing no helicopter in sight when he got to the field. There were no signs of anyone around to help them.
“Fuck.” Arthur reached to press a button on his earpiece. “Mission command, do you copy?”
There was no response.
“Repeat, do you copy?”
Only static came out of the earpiece.
“Bollocks!”
“There they are!” To make things even worse, the enemy pursuers caught up to the agents.
Arthur did not have enough time to run back into the forest. The field he was in provided no cover. He tried to dodge the bullets fired at him, but evidently got hit in three places: his right knee, right hip, and left shoulder. The blow to the knee caused him to fall to the ground, with Alfred landing on top of him.
Alfred moved himself off of Arthur. The new position allowed him to see their pursuers approaching them. Suddenly provided with a small burst of adrenaline, he whipped out his own gun and fired back at the enemy. He managed to take down two out of four.
Similarly, Arthur turned himself around to see the enemy. He pushed himself up into a half-sitting position, putting extra weight on his left elbow and ignoring the pain in his shoulder that came from it. He also took out his own gun and fired. The two enemies that Alfred had missed were hit by Arthur’s gunfire.
Everything calmed down after the last foe dropped dead. The only sound prominent was Alfred’s and Arthur’s heavy breathing.
In another attempt to reach mission command, Alfred put a finger to his earpiece. “Mission command, do you copy? We need backup over here!”
Static. Only Static.
“I repeat, we need backup.”
The static continues to haunt the communication system.
“Still nothing?” Arthur grunted in pain while he laid down on his back to relieve some of the pain on his shoulder.
“Nope.” Alfred fell onto his back too.
“If we don’t get help soon. We’ll die here.” Arthur said. “Both of us have multiple gunshot wounds that prevent us from doing almost anything.”
“I don’t know how bad you’re bleeding, but I’m losing quite a bit of blood over here.”
“Me too.”
They turned their heads to look at each other. They guessed that they could stay alive for 30 minutes at most. Although it was most likely closer to 15 for Alfred, since he had been bleeding for a bit longer than Arthur. The next two minutes were in awkward silence. It was mainly spent not wanting to, but having to, accept that the chances of them dying in this field were very high.
“Do you remember back in middle school when we pranked Francis by switching his hair products around?” Alfred asked.
The memory of witnessing Francis having a panic attack over ruining his hair made Arthur crack a small smile. He had no clue why Alfred chose to bring that up of all things, but he appreciated the small feeling of nostalgia. “That was one of the best ones we pulled.”
“Right? I don’t think I had ever seen him get so worked up.” Alfred would have laughed, but it agitated the wound in his torso too much.
“How about the one where we did the classic bucket of water on top of a partially open door in Peter’s room?”
“That’s the one that got you in trouble real bad, wasn’t it?”
“Got grounded for the rest of the summer, and had to pay for a new laptop.” Arthur recalled that it just happened to be that Peter was carrying his laptop at the time of the prank. The device got destroyed from the water damage.
“I’m also sure that I got banned from coming over for a while too.” Alfred chuckled.
The two continued to talk about some of the fun childhood memories that they had together. The joy of remembering the good times distracted them from the dire situation at hand. Slowly, it grew harder for them to talk as they continued to lose blood. Their skin began to get pale.
15 minutes had passed at this point. It looked like help would not be arriving in time to save them, as there were still no signs of anyone else besides the two of them and the corpses of the enemy men. They really were going to die in this field together.
“I will admit, I do regret messing with Peter as much as I did while growing up.” Arthur sighed. “It definitely escalated to bullying looking back at it.”
Alfred hummed in agreement based on what he could remember of the relationship between the two. Peter fought back every time, which just made the two siblings fight each other more.
“Do you have any regrets?” Arthur asked.
“Plenty.” Alfred answered. “I hid a lot of stuff from my brother and family over the years. And I do regret not telling them the truth. But my biggest one involves you.”
“Really?” Arthur quickly turned his head to look at Alfred again. He winced in pain that was caused by the motion.
“On the day that you moved away, I wanted to say something to you.” Alfred took a moment to cough in order to clear his throat. “But I couldn’t bring myself to say it, no matter how much I told myself that I could do it.”
Arthur remained silent, waiting for Alfred to continue.
“I had wanted to confess my feelings towards you back then. But before I could get my courage back, you were gone.”
If he was not currently dying from blood loss, Arthur would have blushed. He only had the energy to slightly raise an eyebrow. Otherwise, he kept his facial expression neutral.
“The first year of high school was rough. I was distracted with my feelings towards you. I kept wishing over and over again that I told you before you moved. Even when we wrote to each other for a time, I still couldn’t bring myself to write down my feelings.
“It was not until the second year of high school when we slowly stopped writing to each other that I realized that I would probably not see you again. You and your family moved across the country, and it’s difficult to find time and money to travel such distances. I had to move on.”
As much as Arthur wanted to speak, he could not. He looked at Alfred with a sad look in his eyes.
“During the rest of high school and college, I was able to put my feelings behind me for the most part. I dated other people for a bit. But all of those relationships ended after so long because they were not you.
“So image my surprise when I saw you again as a fellow agent within my unit.” Alfred weakly chuckled at the memory. “The feelings that I had kept down for so long came back at full force. Especially when I learned that you were still single.”
“You did a good job of hiding it.” That was all Arthur could say before launching into a painful coughing fit.
“I had to. It was explicitly said in our training that having emotional attachments towards other agents is a weakness that can be exploited by the enemy.” Alfred frowned. “It was also deemed unprofessional in our line of work.”
Arthur rolled his eyes at the comment of being unprofessional. Alfred was correct though, in that the enemy can exploit such feelings. Look at where they ended up now.
“What I’m trying to say, is…” Alfred swallowed. “I love you, Arthur. I still do after all these years. And if I don’t tell you now before I die, then that will be my biggest regret.”
With all the energy that he could muster, Arthur reached over to hold Alfred’s hand. “I love you too, git. Now and back then.”
They spent the next few moments doing an ugly combination of pained laughing and crying. It was cruel, only getting the courage to tell each other how they felt when at their death beds. But it was still better being late than never.
After they both calmed down, Alfred closed his eyes. He didn’t have the energy to keep them open anymore. “Well. We had a good run.”
Arthur hummed in response.
“Now my biggest regret is not being able to kiss you.”
“Same.” Arthur huffed. He was starting to lose consciousness.
“Maybe in the next life, we can be less idiotic about how we feel.” Alfred felt Arthur squeeze his hand in agreement.
By the time mission command reached Alfred and Arthur, the agents had passed away. They were found lying together on the ground, holding hands. Both of them had peaceful looks on their faces, as if they died happy with no regrets.